Buju Banton - ummm, why should he be excused ?

I'm still searching for someone to give me a good reason why Buju should be excused for his dealings with the devil's dandruff...

Hey, if he serves his time, fine. But why would the Reggae community/fan base almost ignore what he did with that cocaine deal he was involved with? I read people saying they didn't like that he was set up.

Aside from some dirty artists that use coke, hasn't cocaine been a subject of many Reggae songs - as in, we don't deal with no cocaine...

I must be missing something ... we all get tempted by bad things, I thought we were honorable by turning the other way which such badness is presented to us... so why is Buju's decision to be involved with coke dismissed rather easily by a fair amount of the Reggae audience ?

Well there is the overall argument of whether his deed should even be illegal, outside of that if you believe in the penalty then he isn't being overly punished. He was stupid enough to fall for being set up.

I don't think there is an argument over whether or not it should be illegal.. that has nothing to do with it. It is illegal and it's transport of dealings have cost people their lives. I don't think he should be excused. You should know that most people are not rational when it comes to these things. People who want him out or excused want him out so he can play music for them. It is "selfish" in a lot of ways. I often times marvel at the people who would just overlook that Kartel is locked up for murder as if there isn't a dead guy and he didn't have a family all because they like his lyrics and delivery.... I seen people on this board call for Jah Cure... save thing. I don't get it. I do not condemn these guys for life, I just don't know why some of the most terrible behavior is just overlooked for the sake of entertainment.

Interesting topic you bring forward Reggaefan. NInja has a great answer in his post. Did the reggae community turn a back on Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown when their hard-drug problems became apparent?

Most of us have committed felonies we've never been busted for. I know i have. If they'd wanted to frame me same as Buju, i'dda been in jail too. Doesn't make it right.

So i don't know when Buju should be accepted back into the fold, but after serving 10 years, for me, that will have been plenty of time. I agree with Ninja about ignoring artists crimes because you like their music, it doesn't seem rational. but you see it regularly. Bill Cosby.

Mercy and Truth must balance to have a positive Rule of Law and a social consciousness that provides 2nd chances … that’s cool … provided those that hurt the children realize the word ‘penitence’ is in the word ‘penitentiary.’

Is not only the material drugs … the cocaine / choke brain / duppy dust … for behind that is dem same dutty spirit pulling the invisible strings that corrupt sweet reggae music into that fake reggae driving mono-lack-a-rhydm egotistic deep belly growl negativity … and now it sink so low to become regular in all the Jamaican ghetto on a Saturday night street dance ya got pre-pubescent little 5 year old children daggerin in full public view.

QuoteAdam

when rita's book came out saying bob raped her everyone just attacked her no one wanted to accept her word on the thought they might have to reconsider bob

Is not just disrespect of the woman … Bob Marley was singing ‘One Love’ on stage and then off stage he put the boots to a man’s head (Don Taylor), sending him to the hospital E.R ... Instead of sink into violence should not have Bob first take a look at himself and say “Stupit me for putting men like that in a position of trust”

Bob had time on his mortal death bed to have a repentant change of heart. He didn’t cry out for the cult mix-up deception. He cried out for the Iyah1 & there are witness, although the Marley estate not yet ready to acknowledge that.

Buju and his fellow travelers are murderers – and now with the plague of synthetic opiates – them is mass murderers … Sure, enhance and preserve a society of 2nd chance Mercy - provided there is self acknowledgement Truth ... and until then keep them in the penitence-uary.

But fret not .... ultimately is all good ... Bob well cool now … he reach a good end / new beginning.

Strikkly is being mentally obese. That is what someone who has never left their home state says.

This is the thing.. you can say easier to forgive them a murderer like Kartel but how many people lost their lives and had their lives taken to get that coke to where it was? Not even mentioning the Blood Diamond talk?

As to forgiving, yes of course. Many of us have committed felonies etc for sure and the only difference is being caught.. true. I don't look at it as all felonies are the same some are worse than others. Never though did I think if I get caught I should be able to skate because I am really good at something completely irrelevant to what I am being accused of. This is what seems to be happening with the "Free Buju" people. You do the crime you do the time. NOW... if there was some sort of framing going on that is different but I rarely hear that case being made.

No wonder so much reggae these day dem front dem hard and hide dem soff-out between them shoulders

Toleration is needful & positive, but within boundaries. How bout ya catch a rapist in the act … How bout u catch someone try poison your children? Do you say “each to their own”?

Some call this the age of ‘Moral Relativism

QuoteGoogle => Define + Moral Relativism:

Moral Relativism (or Ethical Relativism) is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances.

Anybady who say they know-it-all about the architecture and administration of the Universe(s) is b.s. & trying to either control u or sell u something … usually both.

How bout define b.s. as ‘Better Science’ … ya know … up is up, down is down, cream rises & sh*t sinks. ‘Ya got to stand for something or u will fall for anything.’ How bout as the indigenous say: “All My Relations” we r all 1 family and I AM my brother/sisters’ keeper … how bout help yourself by helping others … “Live for yourself you will live in vain, live for others you will live again.”

How bout what Gandhi teach: “Be the change u want to see in this world”

And when Martin was a teenage theology student what his elder mentor: Howard Thurman teach: “Don’t ask what u can do to change this world. Ask what u can do to come alive and go do it because what this world needs is more people to come alive.”

But who got the guts and the perspicuity to confront their greatest enemy … Our own self … our own stubborn ego.

QuoteIndigenious Teaching

Your longest journey in the universe is 16” (39cm) from our head to our heart

Who says that Buju is even looking for anything resembling "forgiveness" from his "fans"? Buju is a messenger who sings a universal message. Do not loose sight of the message just because you realize the messenger is only human and prone to make mistakes like all of us. I think too often, and this includes me, we try and imagine that our favorite (fill in the blank) star lives a life of virtue which reflects the message they pass to us. All they are is the medium through which the message is transmitted.

Its a literal media industry in the US to point out the faults of black people. When you start a thread its like beginner media and Im just pointing out you're following a horrible precedent aka rightwing blowhards.

To me, the Buju issue is simple -- he got caught doing wrong red-handed. He was arrested and convicted of the crime. Punishment was meted out and he is serving that punishment out in the Big House.

I still listen to most of his music, because I like how he brings it, musically. And once he has served his time for this crime, it's over. Buju will have fulfilled his debt to society. I will forgive him and I will go to his shows. Everybody makes mistakes and anyone who atones for their mistakes, deserves and has earned forgiveness.

That said, there are unforgivable acts (any crimes against children, for example). There is a threshold for each of us that defines what acts we are personally ready and able to forgive. To that point, each person has to set that threshold themselves.

QuoteWalter
To me, the Buju issue is simple -- he got caught doing wrong red-handed. He was arrested and convicted of the crime. Punishment was meted out and he is serving that punishment out in the Big House.

I still listen to most of his music, because I like how he brings it, musically. And once he has served his time for this crime, it's over. Buju will have fulfilled his debt to society. I will forgive him and I will go to his shows. Everybody makes mistakes and anyone who atones for their mistakes, deserves and has earned forgiveness.

That said, there are unforgivable acts (any crimes against children, for example). There is a threshold for each of us that defines what acts we are personally ready and able to forgive. To that point, each person has to set that threshold themselves.

Spot on for me. I will go to Buju's shows and listen to his chune as opposed to Jah Cure.... I can forgive drug dealings but I can't forgive rape. My threshold is set.

What Walter said...look: you go into the DEA's backyard, and try buying pounds of cocaine?!? I in no way see this as the moral/ethical equivalence of an artist(or anyone) who is using blow. Mr. Myrie was obviously wanting to cop and sell, period. And guess what?? When you get caught, the DEA runs up their black flag----and don't think they didn't luuuuuuve busting a high profile JA performer doing this.

And I recall the hilariously inane comments by some members of the reggae community claiming this was a BATTY MAHN PLOT(lol) to put away Buju for his homophobic utterances---what f'ing nonsense. He got caught trying to buy over 10 lbs of weasel dust. If you can't be good, dam' well be careful, and sometimes a greedy puppy gets the boot.

Said as someone who sees Buju Banton as one of the VERY most gifted JA artists since 1990...every show I caught of his(including at SNWMF, as well as my home town and Jamaica, were just off the hook. Too bad, Jim. Too bad....

No doubt a stone hustler, coming up as an orphan on the docks & streets of Kingston. He was also a success in the music biz before he started handling BM's business, and no question he was an effective foil for his most notable client(bet Chris Blackwell would have preferred a less aggressive negotiator!). . For all who have eyes to know, I highly recommend Taylor's book BOB MARLEY AND ME. As Bunny Wailer once remarked, when asked if what Taylor had to say concerning Marley's estate and the chicanery going on after his death was true....."Yeah...'

So r u saying Bob M was in the right to beat him into a bloody pulp? It wasn’t even a fair fight. Bob was a fit young athlete and Don Taylor was over the hill. It woulda been the same as Mike Tyson moshing Don King; But I digress … the issue is the iyah1 teaching: “if the law was an eye for an eye the whole Wurld would be blind"

Bob had a change of heart on his mortal death bed & he reach a good ending / new beginning. In his brief life pon this Urt, he not only touch many millions of lives with those music originals - all of which he received in his dreamy visions .... Bob, in his last breath of life upon this Urt, he touch and transform his own inner life. Perhaps this largely hidden & unknown aspect of Bob's mortal career will ultimately be of more import than his music.

QuoteSpliffp

I will go to Buju's shows and listen to his chune as opposed to Jah Cure.... I can forgive drug dealings but I can't forgive rape. My threshold is set.

Mi hear ya brethren … my human side feel the same, and this could segue into the issue of capital punishment … but know this: Front-line pawns in all the age-old bloody war battles of history on this planet of the apes, have often said: “F*** it – kill them all and let God sort it out.” Yea! easy to rationalize & fool thyself, but caution lest u get sorted out too.

So the spirit side must ask: What if a rapist becomes truly repentant, while a murderous drug poison dealer does not repent? (and we ain't talking dime bags either!) IMO the question is beyond our pay grade, as “Judgement belong to the iyah1”

"So the spirit side must ask: What if a rapist becomes truly repentant, while a murderous drug poison dealer does not repent? (and we ain't talking dime bags either!) IMO the question is beyond our pay grade, as “Judgement belong to the iyah1”

Since there are an infinite number of possible flavors of rapist, from the college jerk who takes advantage of an incapacitated woman to the ultra violent ( i don't even want to think about it) kind and an infinite number of flavors of drug dealer, there are an infinite number of answers to this question, and that's the point. It's hard to know the truth in a mans heart, and it's hard to pass judgement against a loss. We do our best, but there is much we cannot know. But there is one thing i thought a lot about many years ago and came to the conclusion that it is above every mans pay grade to decide to take the life of another. And so capital punishment became an obvious evil. Until you can know whats in a mans heart, there will be mistakes made and the innocent put to death. And nothing is worth that. Nothing.

So we continue to assign different lengths of incarceration for different crimes, and although judges are pretty hamstrung in the sentences they hand down, there is still some freedom for the judge to match the crime to the punishment. And when that time is over, we should accept the person back into society and give them a chance.

Nomo, I doubt that you really even believe what you are saying. I believe there would be crimes and atrocities committed by some that would really have you take back that chat, lest to claim sanctimony. The biggest problem with capital punishment is the risk of getting it wrong and punishing the falsely accused. Nevertheless, to say that "it is above every mans pay grade to decide to take the life of another" doesn't pan out. For example, if an accident took place and on the one side you grasped the hand of the most atrocious violent criminal (in your own view) and on the other side you grasped the hand of what in your mind was the most pure and innocent form of life in existence, but you had to let one go to save the other, you have in effect decided to take the life of another, and made a judgement to do it. Capital punishment is a serious thing. Though as humans we do make those decisions, that which will always be above our pay grade is what happens to the soul once departed from this plane of physical existence.

" So r u saying Bob M was in the right to beat him into a bloody pulp? It wasn’t even a fair fight. Bob was a fit young athlete and Don Taylor was over the hill." ----Peacemakeya

AND, consider Don Taylor took multiple bullets (literally) for BM---and consider how much more a beating hurts if your body is still trying to cope with the trauma of bullets hitting you. While the person you may have caught THE bullet for is beating you.

Good point MK, i think most would say that punishment did not fit the crime, the judge seems to have blown it. i only say that because i wasn't there and just read it in the media and i'm not sure the veracity of it all. but this is what makes life so fun, there are always examples that strain credibility, and human mistakes made. I don't give rapists a pass either, and i don't know that the punishment made that rapist any different, or even reflect on his crime. some of them are lost causes from the getgo. granted our system is flawed, but what is better?

Iyah Trod, i would say that in your example of the two men about to fall, i can save one of them, not really a fair example because i can't save both. A better example would be if there was one falling rapist and i could save him, but instead let him fall. I'm saying i would save the sorry sob if it didn't overly risk my life. If he's coming at me with a baseball bat and instead i cause him to go over the cliff, no i'm not sorry, he was trying to kill me. I'm saying that the court system saying that a man should die, and then end his life, is repugnant to me. Certainly we can think of logical situations in which we'd be presented with a conflict, but i will reflect on many capital punishment cases before a situation like you've described will come to pass.

I can only hope none of us are ever in a situation where we have to make a choice like that. More reggae.......Macka B coming right up....

So while watching some videos this morning, i came upon Nkulee Dube singing her fathers song, Ding Ding, Licky Licky Licky Bong at Ashkenaz couple years ago. Great vid, bunch of people from the audience come up to dance on stage. And i listened to the lyrics and thought this second verse might have some relevancy to this discussion:

Another tear drop falls
But I don't care
I took a wrong turn in life before
But I've paid my dues
Objects in the rear view mirror
They appear closer than they are
If you don't talk the talk
Don't walk the walk
If you won't please, don't tease
Another lesson learned
I'm gonna shout it out again
Hello, hello happiness
Oh God, thank you
For another chance
There is no future in the past
So shout it out...

ot: relevant to the statements in the thread on capital punishment; tonight's story of this "sicko" in PA who confessed to killing four in order to avoid a possible death sentence does illustrate a utility of having capital punishment not discussed...

Banning capital punishment isn't because some people probably don't deserve to live it is because people that are in a position to enforce it make mistakes. I am of the belief that it is better to let the guilty live (mind you behind bars for the rest of their days) as opposed to ever killing the innocent. If your stance is yeah but this guy is clearly guilty... well I would think everyone convicted of a crime is clearly guilty but we have seen that this is simply not the case. You can let a guy out of prison after a decade if you have found that he/she is innocent and yes you can't give them that decade back but once you kill a person there is no "take backs". Since we know the motivations for convicting people can often be race or social class and not simply who is guilty and who is not, Capital Punishment should be shelved entirely. It is hard to have a society in which you say killing is wrong.. unless there is a good enough reason.. and not expect people to be the judge, jury and executioner on their own..

That is a good comment Ninja. A cold truth, but hard to swallow when you have clear cut evidence that some individual committed one or more horrible murders, lets say a confession plus video of him killing children. Do we still lock him up for life at a cost of $60-$75K per year of tax payer money? I think it should be viewed through a lens of how much impact the crime has on society as a whole. A killing in the heat of passion, or a drug deal gone bad has less of an effect on the greater community, IMO, as compared to the actions of a serial killer, or a person who targets certain segments of a population (race based, sex based, age based...). Those crimes have a much larger effect on the community, and therefore, the threat is much larger, and needs to be dealt with accordingly. This is where one could argue that whether you execute or lock the person up for life, the threat is removed, and that is correct, but I believe that the community needs a catharsis that does not come from locking that type of criminal up. Maybe the thirst for justice is to firmly rooted in most of our psyche's, my own included. There should be a reward for being the type of person who can at least follow the most basic rules of human decency, and that reward is life.

I'd also like to throw three more types of criminal into the mix, I am not saying they all deserve the death penalty, but I rank them as the top 3 in terms of having the largest impact on the quality of life for a community:

Agree with Ninja, but would also say that you can't teach people not to kill when the government kills. If you believe that murder is wrong, taking a man's life for your own reason, how can it be okay for the government to do so? The government has to set the example. And locking one up for life these days costs a small fraction of the cost of trying to give them the death penalty. It would be a big money saver to shelve it.

Sure, there have been plenty of criminals that are for sure guilty, and plenty nasty that i want them gone also. But life in prison is worse than death. They contemplate death for a long time until their time comes, if ever, and when it does they get an injection which puts them to sleep. Why give them such an easy out? Make them suffer in jail.

And this is just for regular felons. Some scumbag who murders a family is not worse off spending the rest of his days in a cell vs. getting something like lethal injection. In fact, in terms of worse case, having your life extinguished is the absolute "worst case scenario".

reasoning the death penalty is of interest, but if ya don’t mind - onto the Buju topic again: He was not dealing dime bag but serious weight, so the bwoy directly complicit in the death and damage of many.

Some rationalize that creepy criminality with:

QuoteStubborn Superficial Argument:

Oh he’s such a catchy singer and who’s perfect? - so each to their own

Ya think chokebrain just a little recreational diversion? Perhaps for some uptown it is, but suggest ya step out your bubble and open your ize to the cry of the street.

Regardless his visa will be longtime sh*t IMO no record company or credible Ja. musicians, booking agents, promoters should work with him until such time as he has a genuine change of heart ... otherwise you also complicit and what goes around will come bite you in the ass too.

Minor compared to how offended the suffrahs feel when their children have their lives destroyed by the Buju type vampires

re: Reasoning bout the death penalty.

In a coherent society, that has kept it's string of connectivity to the ancient future, a Buju would be physically apprehended by the elders and taken to the village ceremony house to be detained and doctored in tuff-luv with medicines, drum, song, counselling and guided inter-dimensional prayer invocations.

The psychos are given two options: 1) Accept the doctoring, change your ways and become a better human being or: 2) Banishment. The predator must leave friend and family forever to live out their remaining days in isolation. The word goes out to the neighboring tribes and the bwoy must never again show their face. A fate considered worse than the death penalty.

SOme Onez N ONez Nah overStand The depth of My holoGraphic I-Niversiality! I Man In tune With the %th dimension ThereFore Everything I Say IZ Correct, I even Hung Out wit Da Medi MAN!! .........My friend your orgonite is over there!

For real though, I love Yabby You just as much as the next person, I love the Ancient knowledge of my ancestors, and I Loathe Cocaine just as much if not more than the next person. But how can someone so "in tune" advocate this absolutely horrible criminal racist "justice" system? as Mos Def says "its not justice, its just us"

I also love how everyone glossed over all the other stars and their negative dealings, but focus on Buju because he's a little dancehall or something? Seriously you want to talk about justice lets burn out all the womanizers, and alcoholics, and deadbeat dads, and ripoffs, and gun carrying artists, yeah didn't think so!!

And one last thing yes lock up all the Buju type "vampires", but please rehabilitate the "Bujus" that have strayed the path of the vampire. overstand the difference!